The Itsy Bitsy Spider
by Sleepless Poet
Summary: "I'm saying that your analysis is one possible explanation of the facts, and mine is another. In combining them, we add pieces to the bigger picture and draw ourselves closer to the truth."
1. The Threads of Observation

**Author's Note: After binge-watching Death Parade in one night, I couldn't help but write a few stories for it. This fic is going to be a collection of short stories, mostly relating to Onna and Decim, maybe a few Ginti x Decim if I feel like it. Sometimes I'll follow the plot of the anime episodes, and other times it won't be related. Some of the short stories will be connected to the previous ones, some of them will be independent. This one deals with the first and second episodes, it's my take on their first meeting I suppose. Well, let me know what you think, and see you next chapter.**

* * *

Chapter 1: The Threads of Observation

Darkness, like blood, was a slippery human phenomenon Onna had never given acute consideration to until she arrived at the Quindecim. According to Nona, that was three days ago, though she was unconscious during the entirety of that time, so Onna counted today as her first real day. As far as first days or first times for anything went, it overwhelmingly sucked. The lodgings, the bar, even Nona herself, were all pleasantly tolerable, but as with the humans they arbitrated, dark, disturbing things lurked beneath the fabric of Quindecim. Watching that white-haired bartender arbitrate for the dead honeymoon couple, it seemed to Onna that the man Nona cryptically referred to as "the spider" was a tangible manifestation of all the darkness surging beneath the skin of the concept of judgment. Though rather melodramatic, such a theory would logically explain why he had such an affinity in drawing, pulling, _yanking_, out a correspondingly unnerving darkness from the humans he observed. That was to say nothing of his "hobby," as Nona called it, but Onna doubted that mundane of a word applied to the. . .unique things the bartender did in his spare time. Eerie as both he and the general, amorphous concept of arbitration were, they were distractions not unwelcome, for those three days she spent unconscious weren't without event. Choosing the lesser of two evils was rapidly becoming a motif at the Quindecim.

"Well," said Nona, gliding toward the door and carrying her aura of authority with her, "now that the show is over, let us greet our host."

Onna stood more slowly and far less gracefully, the sheen of a cold sweat illuminated by the bizarre blue ambiance of the Quindecim. Why had the manager thought it necessary she see this? Not trusting her legs to remain steady enough to pull off the heels she was in, she took them off and padded out of the audience room with bare feet. "Actually, if you have no further work for me, I would like to lie down."

Though arbiters were supposed to be emotionless, Onna had no trouble in distinguishing a smirk in her voice. "I imagine you must be feeling queasy. Uneasy in your own skin. Filthy at being a part of the humanity that until moments ago included those monstrosities."

"Stop, please." Onna grabbed onto the lavender jellyfish tank as she swayed.

The arbiter's purple eyes narrowed, and with that cross watching her she could not help but feel as if she was now being judged. Likely she was. As professionally kind as she had been to Onna, her scorn for humanity still seeped through every word, every glance, every action. "If you were my assistant, I would tell you to suck up your disgust and keep working. That arbiters can't simply 'go lie down,' so neither can you. But you aren't my assistant."

Nona turned away from her and called out for the bartender, just returning from the elevators. "Make yourself useful to him. The second I hear you have become worthless, your presence will no longer be tolerated here."

Where else was there for her to go? Reincarnation or the void for humans, but was she human? Either way, as uncomfortable as the Quindecim was for her, there was no doubt that there were far worse places to be stranded, with far more terrifying people. Humans. She hated herself for thinking it.

"Goodbye, Onna. Have fun babysitting, Decim."

Clavis arrived with the elevator, and Nona left the two of them alone in the strange blue light. He stood impassively at the bar counter, she still several feet away from it. _Are we just going to stare at each other for the remainder of eternity?_ It was easy to tell this man was radically different from Nona, but hard to determine whether that disparity was good or bad. Not to say that the manager was an open book, but he was less easily read than even she.

"Welcome. I am given to understand that you will be my assistant here at Quindecim."

The pure, perfect monotony of his voice startled Onna. Its level of detachment defied human possibility, and perhaps it was that fact that awoke her to the true reality of her situation. These constructs were not humans, were not gods, but were unnatural outsiders interposing themselves as the arbiters of that which they could never be. It was objectivity to the highest degree, the undiluted impartiality humans strived for but could never achieve. And because they had not achieved it, because humans could not eradicate their subjectivity, all judgments held here were doomed from the start to be an unfair trial.

However, knowing little about "the spider," Onna prudently kept her mouth shut on that matter. "Yes, though I was unaware of that until moments ago."

"Please make yourself comfortable."

She would be most comfortable as far away from him as possible, but as that was not an option, she sat on one of the bar stools, dropping her shoes beneath her. "I really appreciate it. Nona hasn't been quite so hospitable these past few days."

His face did not so much as twitch at the joke. As if he hadn't even heard her comment, he said, "Can I get you something to drink?"

"Just water, thanks."

She thought that maybe he raised an eyebrow, but his hair was so long that she couldn't tell exactly. "You are the only one I have ever encountered to request water at a bar. Interesting."

"I'm just not feeling well right now. Don't get used to it."

"Your response has been noted."

A tall glass of ice water slide across the counter into her view, the blocks of ice clinking loudly in the subtly awkward silence. His back was to her as he absentmindedly wiped glasses, as though he were giving her a grace period to compose herself. Instead, she used the reprieve to observe him without being observed. He was tall, the tallest arbiter or human she had seen here, but then again, she hadn't been here long. The undercut on the back of his head surprised her. It seemed too informal for him, suggested that he was perhaps neither quite so robotic nor as stoic as he seemed. The suit and vest fit him well, though not so tightly that she could see any muscle definition beneath the cloth. As seemed to be a pattern with him, it was perfectly ambiguous. Still, to find out what she wanted, it wasn't his body that he was interested in but his mind. And to have insight into that, she needed to see his eyes.

"What are your opinions on my arbitration?"

Onna sighed, resting her chin on her hand. This was what she hadn't wanted to talk about. "Well, I suppose now is a good time to get this out of the way. Do you want a candid assistant, or an ego-licking sycophant?"

His shoulders tensed as he turned to face her, his eyes a hair narrower than before. She wondered if she'd upset him, if that was even possible. "Why ask?"

The woman watched his distorted reflection in the glass of the counter. "Because when I speak my mind, people tend to not want to listen."

"I will listen. Always."

Even in the reflection of the counter, those algid blue eyes submitted her body to a cycle of scalding and freezing. The emotion behind the eyes could not be called intense, for there was no emotion there at all, but the lenses themselves certainly could be.

"Then I think you made the wrong decision."

Onna tensed herself for some outburst, a recoil or a shout, but neither occurred. There was no change in his outward appearance save for the deepening of his already prominent frown.

"Please elucidate," he said.

"If we're are operating under the principle of choosing the lesser of two evils, then the man should have been the one sent to the void, not the woman."

"Why is that?"

"Tell me, why did you arbitrate the way you did?" Onna stared down into her glass, swirling around blocks of melting ice with her finger to avoid having to look at him.

"The woman was unfaithful to the man and displayed greed in marrying him for his money. The man was devoted to his wife and child, though not his own, and was justified in his anger regarding the affair."

She pointed her index finger at him, droplets of water splattering onto the countertop. She tried not to think of the blood that had been splattered here not an hour ago. "There, you see, I saw a different picture. I think the woman's child really was the man's. If there was an affair, then I don't think it was sustained. She cared so much about her husband that she lied about the child's father to protect him from the grief of having killed his own child. The man clearly had self-confidence issues that he projected onto their marriage in the form of poisonous jealousy. Therefore, I think that, if operating under the principle as stated, the end decision should have been the reverse. However, if there is no lesser of two evils principle, then I believe they both should have been reincarnated. This tragedy was a result of mistakes and miscommunication, and they shouldn't have lost their souls over it."

Decim's eyes were as wide as she had ever seen them, and he leaned forward across the counter as though he were entranced. "I must admit I am fascinated by your arguments, but I fail to understand how you came to that conclusion given we saw the same evidence."

Onna smiled for the first time since waking up at the Quindecim. "Do you know why human trials typically have juries instead of a single judge decide the verdict?"

"I do not."

"Because as objective as humans claim to be, the same observations can be interpreted in an infinite number of ways. By having a group of biased people analyze the same information, one is able to account for more interpretations and thereby, in choosing the average of the opinions, reach a more accurate decision than if a single biased party had decided. Your decision in this case was based upon your interpretation alone, so there was a greater room for error, that is, a misinterpretation of the evidence."

"My analysis was incorrect?"

Onna shook her head quickly, afraid she would somehow offend the sentiments he did not possess. "Not necessarily. I'm saying that your analysis is one possible explanation of the facts, and mine is another. In combining them, we add pieces to the bigger picture and draw ourselves closer to the truth."

"I see." When he shifted away from her, only slightly, she began to worry all her abstract theories were losing his attention. Of course they were. He was used to watching and interpreting actions, not ideas. How could she more actively explain her point to him?

"How about this. Let's make this conversation more concrete: you analyze me, I analyze you, and at the end we share our results and compare how close to the truth we were."

The sharp lines around his mouth softened, and his voice had less of a serious edge to it when he spoke again. "Seeing into the motivations of humans requires an extreme condition."

Onna's eyes watered, not from any form of sadness but from surprise and revulsion at his implication. Her voice shook, thick with rising terror, the memories of the honeymoon couple splattering awfully across her mind's eye like their blood. "I am _not_ letting you subject me to what those two—"

His icy eyes held onto her, unwavering and stolid as though he were attempting to reassure her. "Do not despair, as that was not my intention. I merely meant we play a 'normal' human game. Chess, if you are not averse?"

She put her hand over her pumping heart. "No pain, no stakes, none of . . . that?"

"Simply a harmless match to emulate a far less extreme sense of tension that Quindecim's games create. I promise."

"You promised several things to that couple, all of which I recall were half-truths or flat out lies."

He dipped his head. "I am not arbitrating you, so I have no use for manipulation."

Onna looked at him deeply, searching for any signs of deception. Not that she would have been able to find them if there were any. He would definitely have her at a disadvantage with that apathetic demeanor of his. "Very well."

Decim glided smoothly from behind the counter, politely offered her his hand, and said, "Follow me, please."

* * *

The Spider led her to what she supposed was a small library or sitting room, lit by, like the rest of Quindecim, bluish lavender light. They sat across from each other in a booth, separated by a chess board. Of course, he took the white pieces.

"So, why does Nona call you 'the spider'?" The game was still moving slowly, as they'd just begun, so she passed the time in between turns with small talk.

His lips stretched into a nearly imperceptible, mischievous smirk.

Onna narrowed her eyes at him, not at all liking what this could bode for her. "What's with that face?"

His eyes darted conveniently up to the ceiling, scanning the corners of the room. The odd smirk remained.

"Aren't you going to answer?"

Those eyes, ponderous as an iron scale, dropped back to her, impassive as ever. "I leave you to your analysis."

Oh, so that was how it was going to be. Two could play at that game. Onna yawned as she took one of his rooks, hiding a smirk of her own behind her hand. Conversation slowed, and then died altogether, as the game intensified. Onna currently held the upper hand in sheer number of pieces stolen, but Decim pursued her lead relentlessly. He stalked her as much as her movements on the board, and she wondered what it was he saw in her. Thinking about being beneath the avenging blade of those eyes was almost enough to shake her confidence and throw the remainder of the game. As for herself, since she could not penetrate the mask of her opponent, she turned her observations to his movements on the board. He spent his turns leisurely, unabashedly squeezing out as much time as he needed to act at the expense of his opponent. Because he knew she had no choice but to wait, because it seemed he knew, or thought, that with his stoic advantage he had her twisting under his thumb, he extended his turns to unnecessary lengths. Intuition told her that by the time his turn rolled around, he already knew precisely what he wanted to do, but he delayed doing it until the last possible second to make her sweat. She knew with considerable certainty that that was his plan, and so she intentionally foiled it. Unlike him, she reclined comfortably in her seat. She regarded the board with level-headed indifference, appearing not to care as, piece by piece, her numerical advantage dwindled. Sometimes she yawned, or wiped her eyes, or looked up at the ceiling, all to deceive him into thinking she was bored by his performance. Once, as the game drew closer to an end, she noticed a small cobweb dangling in the corner behind her.

"Look, Decim, maybe you have a strange kinship with spiders or something, but you really should clean up these webs. Maintain professional sanitation and all that."

He looked like he was going to laugh. Onna was so shocked by his sudden emotiveness that she missed his reply.

An hour after she had called check on him, they were still playing, vacillating back and forth between checks with no one yet achieving checkmate. When, in the middle of moving a piece, she felt something cold, stringy, and sticky brush across her neck, she squeaked and jumped so violently she banged her knee against the underside of the table.

"Decim, as soon as we finish this game, get someone to clean these damn cobwebs!"

"My apologies."

She tore the thread off of her and tried to refocus her attention on the game, but by that time it was too late.

"Checkmate," Decim said, without emotion, without triumph, as he captured her black king in a web of white pieces.

Unfortunately for Onna, her king was not the only thing trapped in that web.

She screamed as she felt dozens of fine, strong threads snake around her hands, arms, and torso and pull her up into the air as if she were one of his eerie dummies. Panic, the cousin of man's most primitive emotion, submerged her, drowned her rationality, and she writhed and squirmed against the force of the web, her curses against the man devolving into senseless, angry shouts. Seeing that such a strategy was useless against the sheer binding power of the web, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply through her nose. Surely Nona did not detest her so much so that she would leave her with someone dangerous, and indeed thus far he had not proven himself to be a threat. If he had not strung her up to harm her, then, what else had he in mind?

"No injury will come to you," he said quietly, impassively watching her thrash about above him and slowly fall still.

"Yes, I did come to that conclusion. I believe I have passed the trust exercise, so you can put me down now."

Now that he saw she was calm again, his mischievous expression reappeared. The game was back on. "This was not a trust exercise, which for the record you would have failed, but an argument to support my analysis."

Onna froze. "Well, seeing as the self-righteous spider has me at a crippling disadvantage in its web, I suppose I have no choice but to listen."

Decim grinned darkly, his lips drawing back ever so slightly to expose hints of teeth. He stood up from his seat and strode slowly towards her, until he was close enough to reach out and touch her. He did not, though. "Of course I intend no offense, but as you ruthlessly tore through my arbitration earlier this evening, I am obligated to return the favor."

Onna wanted to close her eyes. Having those judgmental orbs scrutinizing her was too much to bear, but they would not let her escape until justice had been exacted, for such was the nature of arbitration. Good god, he was going to flagellate her with the enthusiasm of a Franciscan monk, and all she could so was dangle here in his web, in his domain, at his mercy.

"Do I detect a shiver?" There was a certain knowing irony in his voice that made the rhetorical question all the more lacerating.

"Get on with it." The only thing that kept her from utter humiliation was the thought of cutting back at him with vengeful analysis of her own.

"While I admit you excel at delving into the depths of others, your awareness of your own situation is paradoxically shallow. Such is how you have arrived in this position. As you failed all but once to notice, throughout our match I was spinning webs. I left you hints—the cobweb in the corner, the thread at your back—but you were either incapable or unwilling to connect it to any immediate effect upon yourself. Why is that, I wonder?"

Onna retreated into the darkness of closed eyes, the onslaught of external stimuli too overwhelming. Her heart beat so thickly she did not doubt Decim could hear it, close to her as he was.

"Do the things I have dredged from inside you intimidate you so?"

She dropped her head, in exhaustion, in self-deprecation, in shame.

"If you are to watch me fish the sludge out of others, then you must as well be capable of looking upon your own black tar. Open your eyes."

She told herself that she didn't know why she listened to his request.

"You are strong for others, but weak for yourself."

"That's enough! Now put me down." Onna flexed against the thread, but it gave no sign of loosening.

She heard the words she had never wanted to hear directed toward her. "You cannot leave until you complete the game."

"You want me to tear you down now? Fine. Fine!" She spoke quickly, those awful words flowing, splattering, out of her mouth. "Like a true arbiter, I originally thought you emotionless, but I was wrong. You find amusement at the discomfort of others. The only time you smiled was when you had me in your chains in chess. You have to be control of everything, everyone, all the time. You're manipulating people behind the scenes, stringing them up like those stupid dummies, but you think you're so high above them that they can't even tell. The only thing you're good at is bringing out the worst in people, and you love it!"

Perhaps her words had cut him so deeply that they had been able to slice through the threads. Regardless of how it happened, she was falling, no longer restrained by the web, and as soon as she touched the ground she ran for her room.

_How could we both have said those evil things?_

It was like there was a curse on Quindecim, all who entered doom to turn inside out, baring their black souls against the world with only intentions of malice. Once one stepped into this bar, goodness became evil, truth became lie, love became hate, friends became enemies. The further she ran from the bar, the more the dark hazy fog seemed to dissipate, the more she felt ashamed of what she had done and said. Games were never really just games here. The stakes escalated against anyone's volition. It was not that arbiter that manipulated the darkness in humans, but the darkness that manipulated the goodness in them all.

She had not yet even made it to her room when she resolved to turn around and apologize to Decim. As expected, she found him standing at the bar, as much a piece of the interior decoration as anything else there. She didn't, however, expect to find him staring forlornly down into a full martini glass. Altogether she skipped sitting at the bar and went behind it, straight to him.

"Look, I don't think that turned out the way either of us planned. I didn't mean what I said, and though I know little of you, I know you well enough to know that you did not mean those words either."

That wasn't to say that at least a fraction, if only a hair, of what they'd said was untrue.

He pointedly refused her gaze, continuing to stare into the orange drink sloshing in his glass. "Then why did we say them?"

Onna sighed. "Sometimes things get blown out of proportion, beyond either party's control to fix it. I believe this is exactly what happened with the couple you arbitrated. I do not agree with your policy of pulling darkness out of people. You arbiters believe you act as a catalyst, but there are some chemical reactions that occur so slowly without a catalyst that they can be considered not to even occur at all. There is darkness in all hearts, but that amount is so minuscule in most that it does not rule their lives. When you pull that out of them, you are not studying that person's sins, but the sins passed down from Adam and Eve through now that they can do nothing about. And that isn't fair."

Onna held out her hand. "Please, let's just leave our darknesses where they belong and start over."

Decim's hand, almost twice the size of hers, closed around her. His skin, like his eyes, was extremely cool.

"I look forward to working with you. You will make for a fascinating assistant, Onna."

"Now let's see if I can say the same of your bar-tending abilities."

The sound of Onna's gently teasing laughter rose above the strange blueish lavender light, above the darkness, above the peculiar place that was Quindecim.

"How many of those do you intend to imbibe?" Decim asked at some point, after more than a few glasses. "As your bartender, I am in part responsible for the state of your inebriation."

Onna rolled her eyes. "I'm not drunk, nor do I plan on getting drunk. I'm just making up for missing out on this earlier."

"You are a truly astounding woman."

She sighed, resting her head on the counter and closing her eyes. "I suppose we all have to be, to end up in a nightmare like this."


	2. The Voices of Our Hearts

**Author's Note: This chapter is my take on Onna and Decim's interactions in episode three. Technically it's independent of the other chapter, but it follows the plot of the story mostly so you might like to read them in order. I'd like to thank everyone for their support so far, and I hope you continue to do so! Enjoy the story.**

* * *

Chapter Two: The Voices in Our Hearts

_An arbiter with human emotions. . ._

_Jimmy loved Chavvo's smile. . ._

_But Chavvo was deaf..._

_Our duty as arbiters is to draw out the darkness..._

_Onna, Onna, Onna, Onna. . ._

_Hail. Those who are about to die, we salute you._

A cacophony of shrill, unsynchronized voices converged on Onna in an ambush behind the darkness of her flittering eyelids. She tossed and turned, flinging the sheets off of herself, clinging to the pillows, pulling her pajamas above her head to block out the sound inside it. Limbs drenched in hot sweat thrashed about in the small space, but she couldn't fight her way out of this nightmare. It wouldn't release her.

_When the imagination sleeps, words are emptied of their meaning. . ._

_If it is understanding that you seek, then wake up. . . Wake up. . ._

_Onna. . . Woman. . . Woman. . ._

She bolted out of sleep as though an invisible hand had shoved her out of the dream and down a flight of stairs. A scream lodged itself obstinately in her throat, begging to be disgorged, but she swallowed it and her terror. The confusion, however, was not so easily stomached. What did all these phrases mean? Where were they from, from whom, for what purpose? She sighed and trudged into the bathroom to dress, forcing her mind to focus on the present. Failing at this task was not an option, for if she did. . . For Onna the consequences were unnamed and unspeakable. Looking in the mirror, she lamented that there was no concealer in the afterlife, the place where it was most needed. Hoping Decim wouldn't notice the bags beneath her eyes was too much to ask. After all, it was his job to see everything. Perhaps he would pity her and give her at least one martini. Again, that, too, was too much to ask.

Shutting the door to her room, she looked around the winding hallway filled with doors that all looked like hers. Ever since she had woken up her, she'd always wondered what was in the rest of them. Empty, she suspected, but there was no way to know for sure unless she checked. A peek certainly couldn't hurt. Because of her nightmares, she had woken early than she planned, so there was still time to kill. The moral part of her told her to respect people's privacy, and after the events of the past few days, she was rather more inclined than normal to heed it's advice.

_Although, the only way I'm going to learn anything about the Quindecim is if I search for information myself. Nona and Decim certainly won't tell me anything other than on a need to know basis._

Onna wandered down the labyrinthine halls, checking doors at random. Many of them turned out to be locked, some were empty, some appeared to be overflow storage closets for Decim's unnerving hobby. She sighed, mentally berating herself. Of course the arbiters wouldn't be foolish enough to put anything out for her in plain sight. She had nearly lost her hope and her interest in the matter when she saw a door with light, normal, yellow light, seeping beneath it. Who could be inside? Had they gone and forgotten to shut out the light, or were they still there?

Onna took off her heels and approached the door quietly, on tiptoe. She hovered her ear near the wood, listening for signs of occupancy. It sounded like water was running inside. . . a bedroom and bath? Her eyes widened in realization, and as she began to back away from the door, it opened. Strings swirled around her and tangled her up, precluding her escape back into anonymity.

With a look of embarrassed frustration, Onna looked down at Decim from where he held her dangling just outside his door. To her surprise, he was not yet fully dressed. The bartender ensemble still lacked the vest, and the top few buttons on his shirt had yet to be done. She could see the tension in his collarbone, the tendons in his neck. Inside the room, a bed was unmade, and off to the right, she heard more distinctly the sound of water running in the adjoining bathroom.

"Onna," he said, impassively as ever. More than usual, she wished she could tell what he was thinking.

She tried the only tactic available to her in her present situation: changing the subject. "You sleep?" The threads were loose enough this time that she was able to move her hand and point at the crumpled sheets.

"Infrequently." He continued buttoning his shirt and dressing in front of her as if it were perfectly normal. Somehow, she was relieved he hadn't made a fuss over the minor show of skin. It only would have made matters more awkward than they already were. "You are truly too astounding for your own benefit. Perhaps I should string you above my ceiling every night so I can keep an eye on you."

"Call me crazy, but I almost want to say you're joking."

"I am."

"Hm," Onna teased, "I wasn't aware you had that capacity."

With his back to her, he replied cryptically, "There are many things about me of which you are unaware."

"All right, Shakespeare, could you cut the drama, and these threads?"

Another thread snaked into the bathroom and turned off the sink. _Those threads are creepy, but pretty convenient I have to admit._

"Since Nona has entrusted me with your growth and development, as both an arbiter and as your mentor I am responsible for your chastisement."

"Hey, if this is another joke—"

"It is not."

Before Onna realized what was happening, he was moving the threads, condensing them and drawing her toward the ground, controlling her limbs and forcing her on her knees with her hands before her face in a praying position. "Why is this such a big deal? It isn't as if I purposefully meant to walk in on you!"

"You must learn humility to your superiors."

Onna rolled her eyes. "You mean like you and Nona? Don't be a hypocrite, Decim. I saw your fist twitch the last time she gave you an order."

He sighed and gently unfolded her, setting her back on her feet. "You are simultaneously exhilarating and exasperating."

She smiled, pleased with her improvements in her ability to elicit reactions from him. "You know you love me."

"I would not quite say that, but your presence here at Quindecim is not unwelcome."

"Do you mind?" Onna gestured at the paperback book lying on the comforter of the bed. With a nod from Decim, she sat on the side of the bed and picked it up, caressing the pages, reveling in the existence of something so mundane in this surreal place. She flipped it over to the cover.

"_Heart of Darkness_, huh? Can't say it's irrelevant, here of all places. I used to like this book, I think."

Decim turned toward her in surprise, buttoning up his vest and fixing his collar. "You read literature?"

"I don't know. I still don't remember anything about myself. This book just. . . draws me, I guess." She yawned, leaned her head back against the pillows on his bed. Exhaustion overrode any sense of manners the woman possessed.

"Is something the matter?"

Onna closed her eyes. "Honestly, I know so little about myself that I couldn't tell you whether something was bothering me or not."

Onna jumped when she felt the presence of something hovering by her head, worried it was the arbiter's threads again. Instead, when she opened her eyes she saw him standing there, watching her with eyes quite unlike his usual expression but still inscrutable. A hand reached out and rested on the top of her head for a moment before returning to his side.

"Come with me, and I'll make you a drink before our guests arrive."

The unanticipated kindness of the bartender almost seemed enough to shock her back into her normal peppy, sarcastic self.

"Thanks, Decim."

* * *

Shortly after their drink, the two guests arrived, both college students it seemed. Decim sent her to greet the girl while he woke the boy. To be honest, she was more than a little nervous. This would be the first time assisting in the arbitration, and the horrors of the honeymoon couple' ending had yet to fade in their gruesome clarity. When she tapped the girl sleeping on the bench to wake her, she could not help but picture her lying on the ground in agony, her eyes wide in pain and awful realization that she was dead. She could not help but see her lunging at the other human with darkness in her eyes, held back by Decim and twisting in his threads, screaming grime churned up from the bottom of her soul.

However, when the girl's eyes flickered open, they were pure, innocent, blissfully unaware. How long would it take for Decim to destroy that, she wondered.

"Um. . . excuse me, but where am I? I can't seem to remember anything at all."

Onna put a hand on her forearm to steady her and help her stand. "It's all right that you don't remember. We—" _aren't going to hurt you? How can you say that and know it will be true?_ "we understand."

"We? Are there more people here?"

The woman nodded, smiled. "Let me take you to them, I'm sure they're waiting for us."

At the bar, the other student questioned Decim, who merely dodged the inquiries with pathetic apologies. Onna smiled at both the girl and the boy, helping the former into a seat at the bar before joining the arbiter behind the counter. They explained the rules and, as expected, the two of them ran off to verify that there really was no escape. Once they were sufficiently convinced, they returned, pressed the button, and predictably jumped as a bowling alley erupted next to the bar.

"Well," Onna whispered quietly to Decim, "this sounds safe. What's the catch?"

"You should be aware that not all of our games involve physical pain."

"Sure had me fooled."

They watched them bowl from the counter, watched them stick their fingers into each other's nervously pounding hearts, watched them fall into friendship, and then into love. Onna tried to remember if she had ever been in love, but she drew a blank, unable to even recall what precisely love felt like. Disappointed with her own lack of memories, she decided to probe into Decim's.

"Have you ever been in love before?"

Only his eye sliding in her direction hinted that he was actually paying attention to her. "Why the curiosity?"

She shrugged. "There are a lot of things I want to know about arbiters. About you. That, and I suppose you are my only point of reference since I can't remember anything."

"It is not unheard of for arbiters to become close—partners is perhaps what the humans would call it—but as you know, we have no true emotion, so it cannot be called love. Physical manifestations of—"

Onna slapped her hand over Decim's mouth before he could say more. "I didn't ask about your sex life!"

He calmly removed her hand and continued speaking. "You need not worry yourself, for there is nothing to speak of. As I was saying—"

"Wait, you mean you haven't. . .?"

"No. Physicality has always been secondary to mentality for me."

"Oh. Sorry, this isn't my business. I shouldn't have asked." Onna pressed her hands over her face to hide the heat rushing to her cheeks. _God, what's wrong with you?_

"Do not apologize. Already you have led me to discover much about humans, so for you I do not mind serving as an encyclopedia regarding arbiters."

They fell silent, returning their attention to the progression of the game. Both players looked like they were actually having fun, laughing and joking and playfully nudging each other back and forth. She smiled, happy for them, happy they were not turning out like their previous guests.

"It looks like they'll both be judged favorably," Onna said quietly, a subtle hint inviting Decim to share his opinions on the arbitration.

"Do not be so sure they will have the fairy tale ending you dream of."

"That was cryptic, care to explain?"

"No."

She didn't know what possessed him to grab him by the collar, sleep deprivation maybe, but before she really knew what she was doing, she had pulled his face down to her level. "Tell me what you meant!"

Extricating himself from her grasp, he intoned, "Very well, but you must promise not to raise your voice again."

Onna leaned into him so he could whisper in her ear. The aura radiating in his personal space was cool, as though somehow his body temperature were far lower than hers. Now that she thought about it, all the arbiters seemed to have auras. Being around Nona made her hair stand on end, like she was standing in the middle of an electric storm. Decim's cool mist of a whisper seeping into her ear distracted her from further pursuing her hypothesis. When the meaning of his words registered, she found herself crying out before she could help herself.

Decim's large, cold hand fell over her mouth as he pulled her close and leveled her with a stern look. His arm pressed into her shoulder as he leaned down to say, "Behave yourself." She struggled against the hand on her mouth with both of her own, but he was stronger than he looked. The more she writhed and talked against his hand, the more he pulled her into him, until her back was against his chest and his other arm wrapped loosely around her neck, his body encircling her in a wintry cage. At some point, she stopped resisting and instead relaxed into him, finding that the position they were in was actually quite comfortable. The fact that she felt safe there did not alarm her as much as it should have.

When she quieted down, he began to remove his hand, but she stopped him, pulling the hand around herself to rest on her shoulder like the other one.

"Just for a minute. Please," she murmured, closing her eyes.

"Is something the matter?" Against her back she could feel his voice emanate deep in his chest and resonate against her.

"I don't know. But this helps."

"As you wish."

He let her stay watching the guests in his arms until their game ended. Then he released her as they left the counter to complete their duties. The girl pulled Onna aside and began speaking quietly to her.

Her eyes were as pure as they had been when she had awoken. "Please, let us have time for a short date. You know what love is like, so please, just for a moment."

"Wait, what was that last part?" Onna said, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

"It's clear that you two care about each other," Mai giggled. "You must have some sort of connection."

Onna groaned. "It's nothing like that at all. I'm not in love with him, and he is incapable of loving anyone, let alone me."

For a college student, there was such wisdom in that knowing smile she gave the assistant. "I thought that way too, that love couldn't really beat all the odds and come true. But then I died, and everything has changed. A lot of things change in the afterlife, so I'm certain it's no different for you and that man."

"All right, kid, I'll ask Decim to let you have your date, but for the last time, I'm not in love."

* * *

"That ended better than I could have hoped," Onna said, reclining on the couch in the bowling alley while Decim cleaned the balls. Now that their links had gone, the hearts no longer beat. It was saddening to see the things that had created love look so lifeless now.

"I respect humans who live a fulfilled life," Decim responded without diverting his attention from the pink ball he cleaned.

_If you had to arbitrate me, I wonder if you'd think I had lead a fulfilled life. I wonder if _I'd_ think so._

"What did Mai say to you earlier when she pulled you aside?"

"I'm surprised you've taken an interest in something non-work-related."

He merely clicked his teeth, waiting for an answer.

"She just asked me to put in a good word for their date, that's all." No way in hell she was brining up their conversation about love.

"Onna," he said, very slowly, very _deliberately_, "I have a sneaking suspicion you are lying to me."

Thank God he wasn't looking at her right now. "Now you're just over-analyzing things. Why would I lie to you?"

"It really is a poor decision to lie to an arbiter."

Onna smirked. She felt terrified and excited at the same time. "Not particularly. Unless I tell you, it isn't as if you have a way to verify your sneaking suspicion."

Decim stopped shining the ball and set it gently back down on the rack. "Then I simply have to make you tell me."

Onna rolled her eyes, standing to stretch. "Oh no, I'm quaking in my heels. What are you going to do, string me up for the nth time since I've met you?"

"No." As he drew out that one harmless word, she could feel the smirk stretching across his lips. He turned around, watching her with a distinctly invested expression.

"Well, then wha—"

Onna moaned and fell to her knees, clenching at her chest. She knew what he had done the instant she felt it. His hand was in her heart. His fingers were a cool intrusion in it's squishy, vulnerable caverns. The mere presence of those three fingers was enough to make not only her heart but her mind tingle in an overpowering buzz. Every time her heart beat, she could feel the organ throb around his fingers. As he had promised the guests, there was no pain, but the vaguely pleasurable, clearly disquieting sensation of those hands _inside_ her heart was in a way worse than pain.

"D-Decim, I swear if you don't remove you fingers—"

Onna shivered as he pushed his fingers deeper into the chambers of her heart, slapping her hand over her mouth to keep any unsolicited sounds from reaching his ears.

"Now, now," he chided, obviously enjoying himself, "you are in no position to make threats. If you would like me to remove my hands, then simply tell me what Mai said to you."

"I really wasn't lying, you know. Why would I hide something a guest said from an arbiter?" Onna began to slowly stand, making her way towards Decim, towards the blue ball still left on the rack.

"Your heart rate is quite erratic. What do you think, is it because my hands are in your heart, or because you are lying?"

By now, his cool hands had warmed to the temperature of her heart, and the lack of temperature difference only intensified the stimulus.

"Give me back my heart," Onna said, and once the words were out she knew she hadn't meant them only literally. As long as she kept talking to distract him, she should be able to reach the blue ball.

"I'm afraid at the moment I'm disinclined to do so. You see, it is simply too powerful an asset to yield up so easily."

Onna was close enough to touch the ball now, so she lunged for it, aiming her thumb, index and middle fingers for the holes to activate the link. She would have made it if that damn bastard hadn't thrust his fingers farther into her heart. She fell to her knees again at the unexpected onslaught of sensation, breathing heavily.

"After I was able to commandeer yours so easily, did you truly believe I would leave my heart exposed?"

"Why are these sensations so intense? Those college students behaved nothing like this when they used the same balls."

Decim looked down at her, impassive once again. "For whatever reason, the link is deeper this time. There is a greater initial connection between us than between them."

Onna dragged herself to lean against the ball rack, her heart still beating quickly. "Just take your hands out already and I'll tell you. I'm getting tired."

The bartender bowed and removed his hands from her heart, sitting the ball back down on the rack next to the blue one. "Thank you for playing."

"Hilarious." Behind her back, Onna's arm inched up the rack, aiming for the blue ball. "I admit that you're right, I was lying."_ Just a little further. . ._

"What is it she said to you that you feel you must conceal from me?"

_Gotcha. _Onna pulled the blue ball, the ball containing his heart, off the rack and slipped her fingers inside. She shivered at the drastic temperature difference, not prepared for how cold his heart was. How was it even functional?

Decim didn't exactly drop to his knees, but he did gasp ever so quietly and stagger back, gripping his chest as if he wanted to burrow inside it and extract her fingers himself. Just to be safe, she grabbed her ball and sat on it, the holes facing down toward the floor.

"You astounding woman," he breathed.

"So," Onna smiled, "how does it feel to have a taste of your own medicine?"

"Your hands. . . are all humans this hot?"

"Yes." She wiggled her fingers around in his heart, pushing them deeper and laughing as his heart rate increased in response. The folds and crevices of his heart closed around her fingers, as if they didn't want her to go.

"That is enough of that."

Threads lifted her into the air and grabbed the pink ball she'd been sitting on, rolling it across the floor to Decim. With nowhere to run, she writhed against the silk threads as he inserted his fingers into the holes, one at a time to torture her. His web was the only thing keeping her on her feet as he delved deeper into her heart. Since her hands were bound, she couldn't restrain the sighs that escaped through her parted lips. At last the blue ball slipped from her fingers and rolled onto the floor.

"Now this is just unfair," Onna complained, leaning back against the web in a futile attempt at distancing herself from the fingers burrowing into her heart.

"Whose fault is it that you attempted to lie to me?"

"I didn't lie, exactly. I purposefully withheld information because it is irrelevant to your duties as arbiter." She yawned, tried to keep her eyes open in front of the man that had twice taken her heart. "But if you must know, Mai told me she wished I could be as happy as she was. That we could both find happiness because we deserved it for what we'd done for her." There, that wasn't exactly a lie, either.

Decim's eyes softened, his eyelids drooped, but he didn't quite smile. "I see."

His web gently lowered her to the ground while he put away both the pink and blue balls. "Sleep well, Onna."

"Hey, Decim?" Too tired to even go back to her own room, she made herself comfortable on the bowling alley couch. From somewhere, the bartender's threads retrieved a blanket and covered her with it.

"Yes, what is it?"

"I hope Mai was correct. I hope we can find happiness, too. I hope you, you who can feel no emotion, experience happiness and love some day."


End file.
